HEALTH INSURANCE BAIT AND SWITCH

ONE UNDERREPORTED STORY of this election is how heavily John McCain has been damaged by Barack Obama's television ad assault on his health-care plan. A lot of voters seem to believe the Democrat when he says that Mr. McCain wants to deny them coverage or bankrupt them with crushing hospital bills.

Mr. McCain has himself to blame for not defending his own reform ideas, during the debates and in TV ads, against attacks that have been misleading when not flat-out false. Even so, Mr. Obama's tactics are especially cynical because his own health-care advisers support plans much like Mr. McCain's. Or at least they did before joining up with Mr. Obama.

Put simply, the McCain plan seeks to remedy a distortion in the health-care market that economists have spent decades begging politicians to fix: The tax code subsidizes insurance only if it is provided through employers. Individuals can't take the same tax deduction for buying insurance that businesses can. So Mr. McCain wants to "spread the wealth" of these tax breaks to individuals of any income through a refundable tax credit, no matter where they get coverage.

"The fact that the tax subsidy, which supports the employer-sponsored system, is better than nothing is a feeble excuse for resisting any changes to the status quo." That's not John McCain's judgment. It's a quote from Jason Furman, who happens to be Mr. Obama's economic policy director. In a cri de coeur published in the journal Democracy in 2006, Mr. Furman implored fellow Democrats and other progressives to confront "a critical missing link" in their health ideology—the same link his boss now spends most of his time demagoguing.

Read the entire Wall Street Journal report.

HAWAII ABORTS UHC PLAN

ETHONOLULU – Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched, and for rather predictable reasons.

Gov. Linda Lingle's Republican administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan. State officials said Thursday they will stop giving health coverage to the 2,000 children enrolled by Nov. 1, but private partner Hawaii Medical Service Association will pay to extend their coverage through the end of the year without government support.

"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."